Report of the Portfolio
Committee on Transport on oversight visits to eight host cities and Department
of Transport, dated 25 June 2007:
The
Portfolio Committee on Transport (National Assembly), having undertaken
oversight visits to the National Department of Transport and eight host cities,
reports as follows:
Introduction
In the course of the Parliamentary second term, the Transport Portfolio
Committee in the National Assembly has conducted a relatively intensive
oversight programme to assess transport preparations for the 2010 FIFA World
Cup. The Committee has interacted with the National Department of Transport
(DoT), including a full-day interaction with departmental staff in the head
office in
1.2 Cabinet has
identified public transport as the primary legacy that should be derived from
our hosting of the World Cup. If the opportunity of hosting the 2010 FIFA World
Cup is to be used to provide a sustainable transport legacy, then planning and
the assurance of effective funding for public transport systems needs to be
more or less completed already, and full-scale implementation needs to be
underway in the coming months, if this is not already the case.
The relatively tight time-lines that we are now facing need to be further
appreciated in terms of the FIFA requirement that no major infrastructural
construction should be underway in the host cities for six months prior to the
actual event in June 2010. This means that there are, effectively, just
two-and-a-half years in which to complete significant public transport
transformation.
In this report the Committee will raise a number of concerns about the current
state of progress. In the light of attempts in some quarters, mostly outside of
our country, to suggest that South Africa will not be able to host a successful
FIFA World Cup, The Committee wishes to state up-front that they have no doubt
that the capacity to provide effective transport for the event itself exists
within our country and that we will rise to the occasion. The Committees
concern relates less to event-oriented transport provision in the narrower
sense, and much more specifically to the question of ensuring that an effective
and sustainable public transport legacy will be laid down.
In the light of the tight deadlines, the Committee has decided to produce this
interim report on its work before the end of the Parliamentary second term. The
Committee will focus on some key areas of concern, making recommendations which
it believes needs to be addressed by the Executive with a sense of urgency. It
will consider compiling a fuller report providing much more specific details
once it has completed its round of host city oversight visits and other ongoing
oversight work.
2 Reinforcing dedicated 2010 capacity in
the National Department of Transport
2.1 In the budget hearings with the DoT on March 20th, 2007, the
Committee was informed that the DoT had a staff vacancy rate of 41%. The
Director General assured the Committee that 50% of these vacancies “were in the
process of being filled”. It is possible that some progress has since been
made, but that still leaves a very high level of vacancy. Whatever the general
levels of staff shortage, the shortage of senior DoT staff working in a
relatively dedicated way on 2010 was very evident to the Committee. It was also
raised as a concern with theCommittee by a number of host cities.
2.2 At present there is only one senior official, a Chief Director, who is
working full-time on 2010 in the DoT. The official reports to an Acting Deputy
Director who heads the Department’s Programme Four (Integrated Planning and
Inter-sphere Co-ordination). This programme has four sub-programmes, of which
2010 co-ordination is one. The Committee was impressed with the competence and
long work hours put in by both the Chief Director and Acting Deputy Director
General, but it was clear that they were seriously over-stretched. Many other
senior officials in the DoT are also actively involved with 2010 matters, and
the Committee was impressed with the general understanding senior members of
the DoT brought to the challenges - but they all have many other
responsibilities and principal points of focus.
2.3 This situation should be compared to
2.4 The Committee recommends that the DoT should urgently build up a dedicated
2010 transport team. The committee has been told that R65m has been allocated
to the DoT for capacity-building for 2010. We further understand that the DoT
intends to allocate R15 of this sum to strengthen its own needs and turnover of
R50m will be allocated to host cities.
2.5 An important role for such a team should be to support the work of the host
cities,
through:
Augmenting city capacity where it is needed, which may require some full-time
secondment to host cities;
Ensuring a more effective flow of national information on 2010 transport.
Several host cities commended the early support they had received from the DoT
but added that “things have gone a bit quiet over the past six months”;
Assisting host cities to more effectively access national transport entities –
for instance, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is uncertain what ACSA’s plans
are for the Port Elizabeth airport. This is impacting upon their road based
transport infrastructure planning in terms of connecting the airport to local
hotels. eThekwini expressed even stronger concerns and
uncertainties about road access to the planned new King Shaka airport at La
Mercy; and
Ensuring that there is effective coordination between provinces and host
cities.
2.6 The committee recommends that much
more detailed planning and integration
with city base plans are
essential.
Challenges in host cities
The level of planning and preparedness varies
greatly from host city to city. In some of the major cities, including City of
Other cities, Polokwane and Rustenburg in particular, appear to have made very
little progress and there are serious capacity and other concerns that will
also be noted below.
The Johannesburg 2010 flag-ship public transport project is the Rea Vaya Bus
Rapid Transit system based on dedicated bus-lanes in the media. Phase one of
the project, which is scheduled to be operational by 2009 in time for the
Africa Confederations Cup, will involve at least 94 km of dedicated bus-lanes
and will provide an estimated 413,000 passenger trips per day. The first phase
runs on several key routes including a major south-north line from Lenasia
through
Costing less than one-tenth of the Gautrain project, and with a first phase
that will transport about four times more passengers, this is a major project.
The CoJ is receiving full support for the Rea Vaya project from National
Treasury and has successfully accessed other financial assistance.
The CoJ has, however, identified several potential risks to the Rea Vaya
project, including:
The slow pace at which Environmental Impact Assessment approvals particularly
in regard to heritage sites are moving;
Uncertainty about the provincial Operating Licensing Board and the province’s
impending conclusion of new bus contracts and subsidy policies and whether
these will be coordinated with Rea Vaya planning;
The dangers of competing provincial initiatives on similar routes that will
undermine the financial sustainability of Rea Vaya – the example of the recent
Monorail proposal was cited.
The CoJ also mentioned capacity challenges. In this regard the Committee
believes that the CoJ should consider building a full-time Rea Vaya team. At
present leading officials dealing with Rea Vaya are not full-time on this
project, they all have other transport responsibilities. In particular, the
Committee believes that, while strong engineering, infrastructural and
town-planning skills exist within the City, much greater attention should be
given to the very complex area of institutional development, financial models,
and BRT operational and regulatory features. The CoJ is pioneering one of the
first integrated public transport systems ever in
The CoJ is of course involved in numerous other 2010-related transport projects
including park and ride facilities for access to stadiums, coordination with
the SA Rail Commuter Corporation on stadia-related stations, access to fan
parks, and the first phase of an International Transit and Shopping Centre for
buses and taxis arriving from the Southern African region, and even further
afield on our continent.
E- Thekwini
The Committee was also impressed with the senior officials in this metro and
with the detailed 2010 transport planning processes underway. After
considerable evaluation, eThekwini has decided not to go for a full BRT system
as their principal 2010 flagship public transport legacy project. Instead they
have decided to focus on upgrading, extending and revitalising the north-south
rail corridor. They indicate that they are working closely with the SA Rail
Commuter Corporation/Metrorail in this regard. Most of the infrastructure
expenditure will have to be borne by SARCC/Metrorail.
Using existing rail infrastructure obviously has many advantages, however, a
major challenge will be to greatly improve on the very low present levels of
rail ridership on the corridor – a mere 17,000 out of a current 200,000 public
transport passenger trips per day (the majority of them currently in minibus
taxis).
The City’s major contribution to the north-south rail corridor is an ambitious
plan to transform the Warwick Junction precinct. In terms of passenger
movements, Warwick Junction is by far the City’s major rail station and
transport interchange hub with several major taxi ranks. It is also a thriving
commercial centre for small traders. However, the present reality is chaotic –
different taxi ranks are located irrationally, pedestrians have to cross the
extremely busy N3 main route into Durban from Gauteng, the area has the highest
concentration of pedestrian fatalities in the country, and the commercial
potential of the location is compromised.
The City has completed extensive planning for a major overhaul of the Warwick
Junction area. The overhaul involves transforming existing taxi ranks and
regulating them more effectively, so that taxi associations servicing townships
in the North, West and South of the City are respectively located on the
appropriate side of the precinct (which is not the case at present). The
overhaul also involves building a fly-over for the Gauteng-Durban road at this
point, to create a safer pedestrian and public transport environment below.
Despite planning having been completed for some years, the project has failed,
for some reason, to secure DoT support, and therefore, there has not been
funding for it. Unless approval is secured before September 2007, it will be
too late to proceed with the renewal ahead of 2010.
The DoT’s reluctance to support the project appears to be based on the belief
that this is basically a car-friendly, free-way oriented project. The proposed
fly-over is about pedestrian safety and about freeing up ground-level space to
public transport. The Committee recommends that the DoT should engage, as a
matter of urgency, at a high level with eThekwini to clarify this matter. The
Committee further recommends that eThekwini’s Warwick Junction transformation
plans should be fully supported as a key component of providing a 2010
transport legacy.
eThekwini has many other important public transport
plans related to 2010 – including an inner-city People Mover bus project. This
project envisages, stadium related pedestrian infrastructure, public transport
priority lanes on some east-west corridors, and a proposed extension of the
rail line to
eThekwini is also engaging the taxi industry with a
view to developing an active role for existing associations as feeders for the
flagship north-south rail corridor and in regard to the inner-city people mover
they intend to remove existing taxi operators from these routes. While
commending the objectives of this process, the Committee is concerned that the
City does not yet seem to have very clear ideas about exactly how taxi
association cooperation will be secured, and particularly what business and
financial models and integrated operating systems are envisaged. Once again,
the Commitee believe this reflects the relative strengths on the engineering
and town planning side in our country, and the relative lack of expertise in
operationalising integrated mass public transport networks. The Committee
recommends that this should be an important area of assistance that should be
provided by a dedicated DoT 2010 transport team as envisaged in 2.5 above.
The city officials raised a concern that the plans to beautify the access
routes
to stadium have not yet
identified funds.
Serious concerns around road access and transport plans for the new King
Shaka
airport under construction at La Mecy as noted above, the committee
recommend
that the DoT as a matter of urgency ensures that the is dynamic
interaction
between the City and ACSA.
The NMBM has opted for a BRT system as its flagship 2010 public transport legacy
project. Route planning is more or less complete, and the city has decided to
go for low-floor, left-door buses on the system, partly because it will not be
a fully closed BRT system throughout, and will therefore rely on kerbside
loading in some cases. The city is relatively sure of adequate funding for the
project. In the view of the Committee, here as elsewhere, the principal
challenges lie in the operational, business, financial and regulatory models.
The city is currently in negotiations with eight taxi associations operating on
the proposed BRT route. It envisages breaking the Algoa Bus Company’s current
single contract for the whole city into five and combining Algoa Bus Company
and taxi operators into consortia. The proposal is to have a negotiated
contract for BRT routes.
A lack of in-house capacity. The Committee believes that this applies less to
infrastructural, engineering and town-planning capacity, and rather more to
operational, business, financial and regulatory capacity for the BRT;
Slowness in obtaining environmental impact assessment approvals. The city
officials recommended that national government considers establishing a 2010
fast-track capacity in the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism –
not in order to avoid effective environmental impact assessments, but in order
to ensure that delays on this front do not undermine the whole objective of
using 2010 to lay down an effective (and environmentally enhancing) public
transport legacy. The Committee recommends that this proposal should be
seriously considered.
As mentioned in 2.5 above,
It is anticipated that significant number of 2010 visitors and perhaps even
teams will be based in
given to upgrade the R72 and or N2
between the two cities.
Polokwane
The Committee is very concerned with what they found in Polokwane. The City
does not appear to have any serious 2010 public transport planning in place. In
fact, it has not even completed its regular Integrated Transport Plan, as is
required by the National Land Transport Transitional Act.
For the present, 2010 transport projects involve widening to four lanes the
main access roads to the stadium but with little thought given to a public
transport legacy. The Committee was told by the mayor that public transport is
a “provincial matter”.
The city is also planning to build a bus and taxi rank near the rail station
for cross-border international transport. The city is still in negotiation with
Transnet, which owns the land for this proposed rank. It is upgrading and extending a second
existing rank for domestic buses and taxis but at some distance from the
proposed international rank - that is, without any consideration for
integrating national, domestic and road and rail modes. This second rank which
is under extension is close to a third taxi rank that is being unused. The city
officials were unable to provide satisfactory explanations for any of this. Nor
were they able to provide any sense of current ridership levels on different routes.
The Committee was referred to “studies that are still underway”.
Planning for the road-based connections to the airport at Polokwane are also a serious matter of concern. The Committee did not
have a sense that any serious planning or consultation is happening in this
regard.
It is true that smaller host cities like Polokwane may well not encounter as
many inherent transport challenges as cities like Tshwane,
Rustenburg
The Committee was equally unimpressed with the state of preparedness and
planning in Rustenburg.
There is absolutely no evidence of any attempt to lay the ground for an
effective post-2010 public transport legacy. 2010 transport planning seems to
be almost exclusively focused on the access roads to the stadium. Nothing
appears to be planned for the CBD, except the widening of one intersection.
8.3 No mention
was made of work with or transformation of the existing bus and taxi
operations. One official told the Committee that they “think” they might
upgrade one taxi rank.
8.4 The Committee obviously strongly recommends that the DoT devotes focused
attention to the situation in Rustenburg as a matter of priority.
9. Mbombela
9.1 In many respects the capacity challenges are
similar in Mbombela, Polokwane
and
Rustenburg. There was, however, in the Committee’s estimation one very
mportant
difference. The officials in Mbombela were not defensive and readily
admitted
that they needed considerable assistance with transport and spatial
planning
and project management.
The 2010 stadium is a new stadium currently under construction some 5 km
outside of the city. This obviously means that Mbombela has no experience at
this time of hosting major events at the location. They therefore have no
experience to draw upon in trying to anticipate likely challenges. This is one
critical area in which they will require technical assistance as soon as
possible.
The privately-owned and managed Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport (KMIA)
will also be key for the hosting of 2010. The
Committee was informed that there is uncertainty at present about its future
ownership structure, and there had been talks about a possible purchase by the
provincial government. The Committee was told that this had caused uncertainty
and reluctance by private investors to upgrade. This, in turn, created
uncertainty for the city in terms of planning road access to and from the
airport. Clearly any uncertainty about this matter must be clarified as soon as
possible, so that planning and implementation are not hampered.
Two major road infrastructure projects are under-way, the upgrading of the N4
and the R40 (
There is no forum in place between the city and the main local bus operator
(Buscor) to plan for 2010. Nor is there any apparent engagement of this kind
with local taxi associations.
The largest taxi rank is privately owned. There have been recent upgrades of
taxi ranks in the neighboring towns of Hazy View and
The City believes that there might be scope in the run-up to 2010 for improving
the current Spoornet/Shosholoza Meyl station which is on the line from
Mbombela also briefed the Committee on NMT projects including cycle-way.
It is unclear to the committee how
these plans are and what funding they
Will
receive .The DoT should engage with the city in this regard.
10. Mangaung
10.1 Mangaung has clearly done
considerable planning in regard to the 2010 event itself, and in particular in
regard to access to the stadium. The city has an advantage in that the existing
stadium, located close to the CBD, only requires relatively minor upgrading.
10.2 For event-related access they
are focusing on converting some streets into pedestrian walkways, and there is generally an
important focus on non-motorised transport, including cycle-ways. A new access
road is being constructed, and a large new rank and parkade for taxis and buses
will be built.
10.3 The Committee was told that the
city has been in discussions with SANRAL on the link road to the airport. It was not clear to the
Committee what progress has been made in this regard.
10.4 The City also referred to the
upgrading of the ACSA-owned airport, but again they were unable to provide any
clear indication of an effective working relationship with ACSA.
10.5 The City officials indicated to
the delegation that they expect many 2010 passengers to be arriving by train.
It was not clear to the delegation whether this has been substantiated by any
serious research, however, the station is old and in need of considerable
upgrading. The City does not appear to be in contact with Transnet about its
plans in regard to the station.
10.6 The delegation was also told
that the province is considering revitalising the Botshabelo rail-line.
10.7 In general, the Committee formed
the impression of a city that has begun to do useful planning on event-related access,
especially in the general vicinity of the stadium. However, in regard to laying
down a public transport legacy, very little serious planning has happened. The
city would greatly benefit from focused DoT and National Treasury’s support
particularly in regard to funding proposals and planning. The city would also
benefit from more dynamic information sharing with other host cities,
particularly with those that are beginning to develop exciting public transport
legacy projects.
11.1 The City of Cape Town has developed extensive and detailed plans for a
post-2010 public transport legacy. The plans are part and parcel of their
ongoing integrated transport planning process. The City has also conducted
relatively extensive public and transport operator consultation, and the
Committee strongly commends this.
11.2 This consultative approach was also borne out in our own Committee hearing
with the City, which was attended by a large number of City officials,
councillors, officials from the provincial department
of transport, MPLs from the provincial legislature, and members of the media.
The Committee again commends this approach, the more multi-sectoral buy-in
there is, the more the chance of success.
11.3 However, the City appears to be a few months behind cities like
11.4
11.5 The
11.6 Among the targets on priority
rail corridors are:
An 18 hour service day;
Punctuality with 95% of trips on time
Frequencies in the peak with a train every 5 minutes, and in off-peak every 20
minutes.
The priority projects include:
Extension of the Khayelitsha line with two new stations
Refurbishment of the fleet
Increase in the operational rail fleet from 80 to 93 trains on priority
corridors
Upgrading Cape Town station
These rail projects clearly require
close work with SARCC/Metrorail. The City assured the Committee that this
cooperation is proceeding well.
Ahead of 2010, the City also plans an extensive network of busways as the first
phase of a more comprehensive system. Priority corridors for phase 1 are:
Klipfontein Corridor including the N2 busway
Koeberg Road
Symphony Way Corridor.
Some of these busways will involve full bus rapid transit infrastructure -
median busways and median stations, platform-level boarding, and pre-board fare
collection. The Committee had the impression that some of the bus planning
remains incomplete and the observations made in 11.4 above apply particularly
to these planned road-based public transport corridors. City of
Summary and general
recommendations
12.1 The Committee recommends that
the DoT develops and scales up a dedicated
2010
team that is able to assist host cities.
12.2 In the larger host cities that
the Committee have visited
12.3 In other host cities that we
visited, with the possible exception of Mangaung,it is
probably already too late to attempt to roll-out a catalysing mass public
transport network as a 2010 legacy. In these cities a more modest focus on some
infrastructure legacy and, above all, a narrower focus on transport
preparations for 2010 itself may be the key priority challenge.
12.4 Government should give
consideration to a fast-tracked mechanism for EIAs
related to building 2010
transport infrastructure. This should not be seen as an attempt to avoid
effective environmental impact assessments, but rather as a means to ensure
that unnecessary delays do not completely compromise projects that are now
working to very tight deadlines. The committee recommends that the proposed DoT
dedicated 2010-team pay particular attention to inter-sphere, cooperation and
ongoing engagement between the three spheres of government.
12.5 The Committee has not been able
to visit the City of
do so in the coming months.
12.6 Although it is not a host city as
such, Ekurhuleni is a critical Metro from the point of view of 2010 and
transport legacy. A major point of entry for 2010 international visitors will
be
12.7 The Committee wishes to thank
all of those who hosted it’s visits, prepared inputs
for thier hearings, and facilitated it’s work.